


when nothing was right but nothing's wrong

by Analyse (D_Willims)



Series: it'll still be two days till we say we're sorry [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Everyone Else Is Just A Mess In The Background, Gen, I Heard A Rumor There's No Incest, It's Mostly Just Allison, author hasn't read the comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 04:19:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17994722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_Willims/pseuds/Analyse
Summary: Allison only sees her siblings at funerals.





	when nothing was right but nothing's wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Fic titles from "I'm a Ruin" by Marnia (formerly and the Diamonds).
> 
> Series title from "One Week" by the Bare Naked Ladies.

“I think we’re alone now.”

Five sets of lungs exhale at once, release a breath no one realized they’d been holding. Waiting. The cameras were gone now. They took Dad with them. There was no point in performing mourning if no one was there to capture it. And then it was just the five of them in the shadow of their brother’s statue. Immortalized forever at thirteen, the last time any of them matter. As if the last eleven years had never happened.

They’d been lined up in the front row of the memorial, for the cameras. One. Two. Three. Four. The swallowing void where Five and Six were supposed to be. Seven alone; always alone.

“I’m next.” Klaus had been high-strung, verging on hysterical. Already drunk before anyone had shown up. “Right down the fucking line. Six, five, four… _three_ …” There’s no humor in his laugh and he keeps a death grip on Allison’s hand throughout the service. So tight she starts losing feeling in her fingers. Whenever he thinks no one is looking, he brings a bottle of vodka up to his lips. Pours it down his throat more than drinks.

On the other side, Diego drops her hand as soon as Luther says they’re alone. Gets up and paces the edges of the courtyard like a wild animal suddenly caged. But Klaus continues to hold on so tight. His nails dig into her skin.

“Heh.” Another humorless laugh escapes Klaus’s lips. “That was Ben’s favorite song. And then you put your arms around me and we tumble to the ground and then you say…” He breaks off his impromptu song to bring his other hand, bottle and all up, to Allison’s cheek. Tilts her head so he can press a wet, sloppy kiss against her temple.

“Jesus, Klaus.” Luther’s back is too straight and his shoulders too tight. Like a rubber band about to snap. “Can you just…”

“Luther,” Allison warns. Soothes.

“… be serious for once?” he finishes, like she said nothing. Everyone knows _be serious_ is code for _be sober_. It hangs heavy in the air like the dark rainclouds.

“Serious? You think I’m not _serious_ right now?” Klaus peels himself up out of the seat. Drags his nails along the inside of her arm, her palm, clinging until his hand has to leave hers. “I am so goddamn drop dead, spit on your corpse, fuck your ghost _serious_.” He twirls towards the statue, lifts both of his arms dramatically. “Let’s have a toast to a life well-wasted in service of a true maniac. May we all be so lucky. Pour one out for our dearly departed Bennie.”

He tips the empty bottle of vodka upside down. Brings it over his face to peer into it when nothing comes out. And then throws the bottle against the statue.

The knife slices across his cheek bone—just a graze, a warning—before the glass even shatters.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” It’s the first thing Vanya’s said all day and at first Allison assumes it’s directed just at Klaus. But when she drags her gaze away from that impending disaster, she sees that the knife has stuck in the wall next to Vanya’s head. “Fuck, Diego.”

Allison turns her attention back to Klaus just in time to see him blanche, stumble forward. She rises, steps towards him, arms ready to catch him.

He catches himself on her shoulders instead, looks up at her as if it’s the first time he’s seen her. “You’re so…” Klaus pauses to swallow hard “… so lovely.” One hand rubs up and down her arm, feeling the fabric of her sleeve. “Promise me you’ll cry real pretty when it’s my turn.”

And then he vomits an entire bottle of vodka all down the front of her dress.

\--

Allison’s forgot what it’s like to live a life without doors. Not that Dad has any rules against using the doors. If anything, he’d _encourage_ them to lock themselves away behind their bedroom doors. Out of sight, out of mind. All the little toys back into their little boxes at the end of the night.

There was a comfort in leaving the doors open, in being able to walk down the hall and know where everyone is. And there’s defiance in it, too.

Still she jumps when Luther clears his throat. He’s leaning against her doorframe, trying to appear casual without actually being casual. She turns her attention back to the mirror, wipes away the lipstick that spilled over the edge of her lip liner. Picture perfect.

“I was thinking, if you were staying… we could go to that doughnut shop…” Spoken like a man who hadn’t left the house in years. She worries about him now that Ben is gone. Alone in this tomb of a house.

“I can’t stay,” she says with a practiced evenness. “I have a flight.”

She left no room for _after_ the funeral. If she did that, she’d just stay forever. Get mired in this mess again. Already, she feels guilty for leaving. Luther’s jaw is so tight, and Klaus is so sick. It couldn’t hurt to stay the night. But she _knows_ it won’t just be tonight.

“Tell Klaus I said good-bye?” Allison stands, crosses the few feet between them. Wraps one hand around Luther’s tense elbow and presses a kiss to his cheek. His jaw doesn’t unclench.

“I’m sure he’ll know when you cry real pretty at his funeral,” Diego snarls as he passes them in the hall.

“Not if you die first,” Allison retorts. It’s instinct more than anything and not the good-bye she wanted to give. But Diego always has to make it _so hard_.

“Love you, too, sis.” He disappears down the stairs. A shadow moving too quickly to get out of here.

“Have you seen Vanya?” Allison turns her attention back to Luther. Her hand still rests on his elbow, trying to get him to relax. “I wanted to say good-bye.”

Luther only mutely shakes his head.

\--

The bottom of her stomach drops out when she steps off the plane and into a sea of flashing camera bulbs. It’s the loneliest feeling in the world. There’s no one to share in her grief. Just a thousand paparazzi wanting a sound bite. Something they could run in the morning’s paper about the tragedy of losing her brother so young. How Ben was soft and sweet and all those things that none of them were anymore because survival had come first growing up and open doors or not they’d shut each other out.

She holds her breath and steps off the metaphorical cliff. Feels the flash of the cameras devour her whole. How else would she know that she was even real? Who was she without the tabloid reports? Just as lost in the dark as her brothers.

Patrick’s arms come around her. Of course, he’s there. Only three days ago, she was planning to break it off with him. He just wanted the attention and she just wanted something, anything that was real. Three days ago Ben was alive and now Patrick feels like a lifeline. Tugging her out of the deep end.

Allison closes her eyes and lets him tow her in. Until there’s no space left between them and the air has gone out of her lungs.

“I heard a rumor,” she whispers, lips against his ear, “that you love me.”

\--

_… that you think you're ordinary._

\--

_… that you want to leave with me._

The words are soundless, ineffective. But Vanya’s there, Vanya’s screaming, Vanya’s holding the gaping wound in her neck. And Allison’s holding onto Vanya, desperately.

It never occurred to her, not once, that she would be next to die. Cold and alone because none of them could pull their shit together. Not when Luther was pumped full of so much experimental serum and shiny new scars cover every inch of Diego’s body and a plastic rehab bracelet rattles on Klaus’s wrist.

This time, **this time** , Allison had looked at her brothers and she **stayed**. Let herself be dragged down into the muck and the mire of trying to save them, trying to save their family, trying to save herself.

Someone else is tugging on Vanya and Allison tightens her grip. Pulls with every last ounce of her strength. She might die here, but Vanya won’t be the next to fall. Harold doesn’t get to lay his hands on her sister.

_I’m not leaving you._

\--

She wakes up.


End file.
